Hi.

Sep 18 Freshman Guide: Guarding the Rock

As you grow accustomed to your new life at Northwestern University, one thing becomes abundantly clear: every time the sun rises over Lake Michigan, we are forced to collectively reckon with the fact that our school is not an Ivy League institution. We should probably all get together and talk about this inner crisis with a professional, but instead we cover that internal dread with a handful of fun, marketable traditions that really make our brochures pop.

Any true Wildcat knows that our most notorious, most widely advertised tradition is guarding and painting the Rock. As our eccentric and underpaid tour guides explained to you when you were an undecided POS flaunting your college acceptances in a national tour of school tours, students who guard the Rock for 24 hours are allowed to vandalize the large stone. What the school doesn’t tell you is that there are other perks that come when you wait longer than 24 hours. Here they are:

26 Hours: Get the lakefill all to yourself for a day! No one else! Just you! Alone! On the Lakefill!

28 Hours: Mystery box! The mystery is Bananagrams and a Bananagrams t-shirt.

30 Hours: A taxidermy of James Franco’s hand!

34 Hours: A football signed by Coach Pat Fitzgerald’s secretary!

38 Hours: Receive a free ticket to the hottest event of the year: Green House formal!

40 Hours: Win a dinner for you and the Rock (not the actor, the rock) at Sam’s Chicken and Ribs!

40 Days and 40 Nights: Win an arc for you and two of every animal!

44 Hours: No more chores! You don’t have to do any more chores. Ever.

48 Hours: Free crime! Commit any crime with no repercussions.

75 Hours: Hot cookie bar shower! It is what is sounds like.

98 Hours: Paint everything on campus! You are legally obligated to do this.

150 Hours: Morty will sacrifice a freshman atop the rock in your honor.

525,600 Minutes: Free rent!

So what are you waiting for? Abandon all your earthly possessions and start a new life at the Rock while the prizes roll in! Happy camping :)